Tiny Human Life    page - 255 - O.    ABORTION A PUNISHABLE CRIME IN EARLY CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth! ... I will exact your blood of your lives...at the hand of every man's brother. Whosoever murders  a  human  being,  must  himself  be  killed  by  man.  For  God  made  human  beings  in  His  Own image. So you - be fruitful and multiply! Bring forth abundantly! ... If men...hurt a pregnant woman so that her fruit depart from her..., if any serious bodily harm follow - you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth!" - Genesis 9:1-7 & Exodus 21:22-24. 1647.   In this  chapter,  we  shall  see that  Early  Christian  Civilization  always regarded  abortion  as  a punishable  crime.  Christianity  did  so,  even  before  Constantine  the  first  Christian  Emperor's establishment  of  a  nominally-Christian  State  in  A.D.  313-21f.  For  even  Pre-Constantinian Christianity saw that both the Older and Newer Testaments took this position. So, by way of introduction to the anti-abortionism of the pre-Constantinian Church - we now summarize the anti-abortionistic teachings of the Older and Newer Testaments. The Older Testament: murderous abortion is a punishable capital crime 1648.   Both  before  and  during  Moses'  lifetime,  and  also  in  subsequent  Older  Testament  times, abortion was very severely punished.¹ As the great prophet Moses  himself declared  -  even from at least the time of Noah onward, God had decreed: "Surely, I will requite your blood of your  lives! ... I  will  requite  it  at the  hand of man.  At the  hand  of  every  man's  brother,  I  will requite the life of man. He who sheds the blood of a man, by man shall his blood be shed...for perpetual generations." Genesis 9:5-12. 1649.   As many Jewish Commentators have pointed out, the above includes violence also against that little man known as a fetus. For in the original Hebrew, the above phrase: "he who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed" - can also be translated: "the blood shall be shed of him who sheds the blood of a [little] man inside of a (wo)man." 1650.   Further,  after chronicling  Pharaoh's  wicked  murder  of  newborn  babies  in  Exodus  1:15f,  the same Moses also added: "You shall not murder!" Exodus 20:13. "If [a man or] men...hurt a pregnant  woman  so  that  her  fetus  depart  from  her...he  shall  surely  be  punished....  If  any mischief [or serious injury] follow - then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, [and] wound for wound." Exodus 21:22f. A 'burning'  of  the  fetus  with  a  saline  solution,  or  a  'wound'  inflicted  upon  him  or  her  by  the abortionist's curette - should therefore be requited against the offending abortionist. 1651.   "If a man...happens to meet a girl...and rapes her - only the man who has done this, shall die." Deuteronomy 22:25-27. For "the father shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the child be put to death for the fathers. Every person shall be put to death for his own sin." Deuteronomy 24:14. So: slaughter the raper, but not the rapee - and still less any little fetus conceived in the rapee, as a result of that rape! 1652.   Especially the book of Proverbs (6:16f) condemns "hands that shed innocent blood" and "feet that be swift in running to mischief." In 24:11, it calls upon people "to deliver them who have been drawn unto death - and those who are about to be slain." In 31:8, it enjoins: "Open your mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction."  Yet  no more clearly than in 28:17 ("a man who violates the blood of any person, shall flee to the pit") - is the punishability also of abortionists underlined. 1653.   On the latter text, Rev. Dr. Matthew Henry elucidates:² "This agrees with that ancient  law  -                                                      1. See chs. I & J. ^2.. M. Henry: A Commentary on the Holy Bible, London: Marshall Bros., n.d., III p. 567.